Scientific reports impact factor 2017

Scientists found an area of ice that is bigger than Rhode Island, was missing from the South Pole and they believe that an unusual, extremely hot spot, powered by radioactive rocks and warm water under the Antarctic Ice sheet could be responsible for this phenomena.The new study was published in the journal Scientific Reports this week. The report stated that even though that unusual hot spot is not expected to melt away Antarctica right now, the researchers observed that the heat has caused the sink of a 100-by-50 kilometre area of ice area.The lead author of this study, Dr Tom Jordan from the British Antarctic Survey said in a statement that it was an exciting project but the results they have now are quite unexpected "as many people thought this region of Antarctica was made of ancient and cold rocks, which had little impact on the ice sheet above.""We show that even in the ancient continental interior, the underlying geology can have a significant impact on the ice," he added. AS … [Read more...] about Unusual hot spot found beneath Antarctica’s ice; Radioactive rocks cause disappearance of huge area

AUSTIN, Texas: Despite advances in predicting where hurricanes are heading, forecasters are still struggling to determine a crucial factor in deciding emergency measures and evacuations: their intensity.With a better way to predict a storm's power, or intensity, people on the ground will be more prepared in knowing whether a hurricane headed their way will cause devastating floods and winds that can uproot trees like Maria, which devastated Puerto Rico last year, or just shake branches and rattle windows."The fact that we have a much better understanding of where these storms are going to go is a great first step. We sort of have half the circle filled in, and we need to get that other half filled in, which is that intensity component," said Steve Bowen, director and meteorologist for insurer Aon Benfield’s Impact Forecasting team.Due to warming sea and air temperatures, there is also more energy in storms, which might affect intensity predictions, some climate scientists have … [Read more...] about Scientists peer into heart of hurricanes to improve intensity forecast

PARIS: Limiting global warming to two degrees Celsius will not prevent destructive and deadly climate impacts, as once hoped, dozens of experts concluded in a score of scientific studies released Monday (Apr 2).A world that heats up by 2 degrees Celsius (3.6 degrees Fahrenheit) - long regarded as the temperature ceiling for a climate-safe planet - could see mass displacement due to rising seas, a drop in per capita income, regional shortages of food and fresh water, and the loss of animal and plant species at an accelerated speed.Poor and emerging countries of Asia, Africa and Latin America will get hit hardest, according to the studies in the British Royal Society's Philosophical Transactions A."We are detecting large changes in climate impacts for a 2C world, and so should take steps to avoid this," said lead editor Dann Mitchell, an assistant professor at the University of Bristol.The 197-nation Paris climate treaty, inked in 2015, vows to halt warming at "well … [Read more...] about Two degrees no longer seen as global warming guardrail

source Evgeny Belikov/Strelka Institute/Flickr Frequent social media use and screen time have been portrayed as universally bad for our health. However, a lot of research on this phenomenon has been characterized by poorly done studies and bad science. The vast majority of evidence suggests that our smartphones are not uniformly harmful, and in some cases, they may be a force for good. This is an installment of Business Insider’s “Your Brain on Apps” series that investigates how addictive apps can influence behavior. True story: I once walked headfirst into a pole on my way home from work. I can’t blame the darkness (the sun had only just begun to set), and I can’t blame my vision (I’d recently gotten new glasses). But I can blame my iPhone, whose vibration had lured me into staring at its crisp bright screen. The text I was … [Read more...] about There’s no solid evidence that people get addicted to social media — and using it could actually be beneficial

Mustafa Suleyman is a 33-year-old entrepreneur and activist. He sold his artificial intelligence company DeepMind to Google for £400 million in 2014. Suleyman dropped out of university and worked as an activist before getting involved in artificial intelligence. Mustafa Suleyman is one of the three cofounders of DeepMind, an artificial intelligence (AI) lab in London that was acquired by Google in 2014 for a reported £400 million – the search giant’s largest acquisition in Europe to date. Listen to a few of Suleyman’s talks on YouTube and you’ll quickly realise that he’s a left-leaning activist who wants to make the world a better place for everyone as opposed to an elite few. He differs from many of today’s tech founders in that he genuinely seems to care about the welfare of everyone on the planet. The 33 year old – affectionately known as “Moose” … [Read more...] about Mustafa Suleyman: The liberal activist who cofounded Google’s £400 million artificial intelligence lab